Duchess of Nowhere
by Dragoris
Summary: Contains an imagined version of Cora's entire back story, from the events of "The Miller's Daughter" up to just before the death of Queen Eva. Explains why she left the royal palace, her life as Henry's wife, and why Queen Eva is nice to commoners now ;) Some vaguely implied sexuality/magical violence.


Before she did this, she would touch the chest for luck. No, not for luck, but only to remind herself that she was in control of what she was about to do, she was in control of everything, she had _chosen_ control. Where others might choose love, she had chosen power. Where others might pray for happiness, touch wood, or blow away fallen eyelashes, she depended only on herself, on her own will. It had not let her down yet.

She traced the familiar path down the stairs, deep into the cavernous rooms beneath the castle. There was a guard on duty at the first doorway; he did not stop her. He was her man. She could crush him if she wanted to, and he knew it; she knew of no better way than that to inspire allegiance and obedience. He bowed as she passed.

The wooden door, the iron bars, another door, and another. She felt the pulsing through the floorboards as she came closer, but she walked past her secret treasure room, opened another door. The room was pitch-black, but she knew every inch of it so well, she had no need of light.

In the small, cold chamber, she kneeled like one about to pray. Taking a small dagger from its sheath at her waist, she slid it into a nearly invisible slit in the floor, prying up a heavy floor tile. There, casting its deep red glow over the darkness, was her greatest treasure, encased in a carved box of petrified stormwood, a material known to contain magic better than any other. She closed her eyes, placed her right hand flat over the box. The pulsing seemed to quicken, with joy or grief or fear or love. It didn't matter what it was, in the end. It made no difference to her anymore.

She waited, only a few beats, before she got tired of it. With a clatter, she shoved the tile over the opening. She rose quickly, her long red gown hissing across the floor as she walked out, locked the door, and another, and another, and another, until she came back up the stairs, and into the greyly-lit space of the courtyard.

Her lips curled with distaste. It was always grey here, in the northern borderlands of her brother-in-law's kingdom. They had a brief spring, and a briefer summer; the rest was rain and snow and grey. Her fool of a husband loved it, of course, claimed that the cool air cleared the head, and that the moisture was good for the crops. Worse, their young daughter seemed to be taking after him. She seemed to like nothing more than to run or ride through the constant mist, cavorting among the trees, trailing the costly fabrics of her gowns in this thick northern mud, behaving like a low-born peasant. Behaving like her god-forsaken grandfather, drunk on a feast day.

Remembering those days, Cora nearly shuddered, but she stopped herself. Long ago, she had trained herself not to shiver in the cold, not to tremble in the presence of a threat, not to shudder at the sight of blood or vomit or cruelty. She had taught herself self-control long ago, even before the night of the masked ball, the golden thread, and the appearance of the man who'd changed her life.

If you could even call him a man. He was a creature like none she'd ever encountered. Some called him an imp, others, more respectfully, spoke of him as "the Dark One." They said he was a sorcerer, a demon, a deal-maker. They said that he would be in your power if you learned his name. They said he would grant you fantastic wishes if you were crafty enough to catch him – by the ear, they said, or by the toe, or by the neck. She heard these tales and resisted the urge to laugh. Even if they had figured out the right body part, no one would hold Rumpelstiltskin for very long. Unless he wanted to be held.

She could still remember the night in the old king's tower, the sickening terror she'd felt as they'd shut the door behind her. She hadn't shown it, of course, had made every effort to seem confident in her outlandish claim, to seem almost amused at the whole thing. Inside, she was fuming at herself, for telling the outrageous lie, for coming to the ball in the first place, for being so foolishly bold, for not, simply, begging for the king's pardon, pleading for her life. She was pacing the perimeter of the room, coming to the window, over and over, turning the limited possibilities, helplessly, in her head.

When she heard his voice, it spoke her own thoughts. And then, she saw him, the odd look of him, the gleam in his eyes. She wasn't afraid of him. He seemed dangerous, but it was a controlled, deliberate kind of danger, not the kind that erupts suddenly out of a tavern, or from behind a granary door. He proposed a deal. She made a counter-offer. He laughed, and gave his name – the strangest collection of syllables she had heard. And then, they began the lesson.

When he told her to focus on her rage, on her bloodlust, she had felt a stirring just below her heart, a warm uncurling, like blood snaking through water. She spoke, and he moved his face against her neck, along her shoulder and her arm, trailing his lips over her skin. They were surprisingly soft, she thought, and then he'd said, "Look." The straw had turned into gold, but it hardly seemed to matter at that moment. She leaned back, into the warmth of his breath – when you weren't looking at him, he felt exactly like a man – but he had told her, "Don't stop. Don't stop until they are all on their knees." And she had turned her attention back to the spindle, hearing those words, "on their knees, on their knees," the golden thread coming faster and faster off the wheel, pooling in a tangling pile beneath her feet, as he resumed the journey of his mouth across her neckline, until she knew that the pounding of her heart, the rhythm of her hands, the pulsing in her veins was driven not by lust for blood, but for flesh. She stopped spinning then, leaned back toward him, and this time, he didn't stop her.

He looked queer enough to be repulsive, but he had never repulsed her. He smelled of good leather, like the boots of the royals when they had stepped past her, as she crouched in a spill of flour on the marble floor. He smelled of fresh straw, like the barn where she once met someone she'd thought she loved, someone who later told everyone in the village how good she was at grinding grain. And expensive liquor, like the bottle her father had traded a month's worth of flour for, once. The way it had smelled when she had smashed it over the hearth. It wasn't the first time her father had knocked her down, but it was the first time she'd threatened to fight back, brandishing the broken bottle until he had backed off.

Every memory of humiliation and hurt came back to her, and with them, her anger, her resolve to hold her head high no matter what, to be proud, to demand respect, to win it, to earn it, to take it. The spinning wheel seemed to spin on its own, and the straw was turning to gold. It was cool, and silky, unimaginably valuable, and suddenly worthless, and she crowed with delight at the strangeness of that, the pile of gold underneath them, and the way his skin seemed to glow an even richer shade of gold than gold, the knowing glitter of his eyes in the candlelight, and the piercing, powerful sensation that closed over her, more violent than anger, deeper than fear, stronger than vengeance.

"Is this love?" she whispered, after.

He gave a high-pitched giggle. "No, dearie," he said, and then he said something utterly profane, offensive, and completely true. She laughed for a long time at the accuracy of his description, and when she finally stopped, she noticed him looking at her intently. "Then again," he said, "stranger things have been known to happen."

They'd only had a few weeks together before she had been forced to make her choice. The plans were all made – the public ones, for her wedding to Prince Henry, the fourth son of the king, and the secret ones, for her running away with Rumpelstiltskin. She was going to choose the wild joy of his darkness over her the bland promise of her upcoming nuptials. Just before they were supposed to leave the kingdom, she'd asked him to show her how to rip out a heart. She planned to rip out the king's heart, to crush it in her hand before his dimming eyes, to make him plead for his life, and then to snuff it out anyway.

She got as far as pushing her hand inside his chest, the way Rumpelstiltskin had taught her. She found the heart immediately, right where she knew it would be. She felt its frantic thumping as her fingers closed around it. The king's gasp was music to her ears. She grinned at him, her hand tightening, preparing to pull it out.

The king gasped again, trying to get enough breath to speak. "You – you – at the masque, you – "

"What?" she snapped impatiently, relaxing her hold slightly, so he could finish his thought.

"At the masked ball," the king whispered through whitening lips, "you showed far more imagination than this."

She let him live. It was impulsive. She was never sure, after, what had made her change her mind. She thought perhaps it was grudging admiration for his bravery in that moment. Perhaps he'd managed to deliver a sting to her still-fragile ego. Or maybe she'd known what she would do all along. She released his heart, slid her hand out so quickly that it left no mark on his body. His knees buckled, and he fell to the floor. As the king coughed and gasped, she stood over him. "I could finish that anytime I like, do you understand me? You had better treat me with respect, _Father_. Or I will show you just how much imagination I have."

She made her way back to her rooms, her head throbbing. It was clear to her what she should do. It was clear where the greatest advantage lay. But, every time she thought about telling Rumpel that she would not go with him, every time she considered the years stretching before her, the joylessness of this marriage, her heart seemed to twist with revulsion. And every time she thought of Rumpelstiltskin, the way his eyes glowed when he watched her cast a successful spell or take down her hair, the way he made her feel both powerful and challenged, the way he could make her laugh so richly in the dark – every time she thought of him, her heart seemed to expand, to pulse with a golden light. The workings of her rational mind became almost irrelevant. Slowly, she understood what she had to do.

It had hurt. Oh, gods above and gods below, how it had hurt at first. It was all she could do not to lose her focus, not to recoil, to release her struggling heart, and not to reflexively crush it inside her chest. The pain was bad enough that death seemed inviting. But then, she concentrated, as he had taught her to, thought, fiercely, "Mine!" and tore it loose. It stopped hurting immediately. In fact, it felt good. It felt like freedom. It felt like power.

Rumpelstiltskin was angry. It was understandable. He'd changed the terms of their agreement because he'd believed that he her love cast a stronger hold than his contract. He had never expected her to take matters into her own hands, to sever that bond without asking him. She'd taken his anger stoically, even though she felt something – a pang of some kind. It was probably only regret at losing such a valuable ally.

She had been reasonably sure that it was impossible for her to have his child. Still, when she realized she was pregnant very shortly after the wedding, she spent nine months in a state of mild unease. It would be difficult to explain if the child was born with golden, reptilian skin and gooseberry-green eyes with oversized irises. She took the precaution of arranging a completely private confinement, attended by only a couple of midwives. If the baby was not as it should be, Cora reasoned, it wouldn't be terribly difficult to dispose of two women and an infant.

But the baby looked normal. As normal as a tiny, wrinkled, squalling thing could look, anyway. The pain of giving birth was nothing compared to ripping out her own heart, but by the end, Cora was exhausted. When she woke up, they offered to bring the child to her, but she refused. She refused several times more, until finally, grudgingly, she agreed to hold her daughter.

The baby was sweet enough, Cora supposed. But useless. Utterly useless. Weak of body and of mind, and of blood, since her father was almost certainly the milk-tempered Henry. Cora held the child without enthusiasm, not much caring whether it enjoyed the contact or not. "Well, I've done my duty to the kingdom," she told the yawning little face, "even if your father will never make me queen of it. Now, the least you could do for me is become queen of some other dump."

The issue of the succession had been a bone of contention between Cora and Prince Henry almost from their wedding night. Left alone in their chamber after the revels, stripped to her shift, Cora had moved into her new husband's arms. She was drunk on wedding ale and wine, on the admiring shouts of the guests inside the ballroom, and of the citizens thronged outside the palace. All the kingdom knew that they owed their new prosperity to this miraculous girl, the miller's daughter who could spin straw into gold. They loved her for it. The petty lords who had turned their noses away from her when she had brought flour to the kitchens, the merchants who had chased her away from their stalls for fear of putting off wealthier customers – they all shouted blessings upon her name now. She found it rather disgusting, it made her want to spit at them, but tonight, she decided to enjoy it.

"Mmm," she said, as Henry's fingers stroked across her neck, producing an irritating tickle. "Wasn't that a beautiful wedding."

"Yes, my beloved," he said. "And you made a beautiful bride. And a beautiful princess. The most beautiful princess in the land."

He kissed her wrists. She stifled a laugh. The pup really did love her. She'd noticed his attraction to her on the night of the masked ball. She remembered that it had pleased her deeply then. Now, it just seemed pathetic.

"Princess," she purred, as he fumbled with the laces on the back of her shift. "Princess Cora. I like the sound of that." She reached for the coronet on the dressing table, the one she had worn during the wedding ceremony, and would wear for formal state occasions. She raised her arms, settling the coronet on her slightly disheveled coif. "But do you know what would sound even better. Queen Cora. Mmm. Now that sounds much better. Both words have the same sound, do you hear that? Like a song for the troubadours. Queen Cora. Queen Cora. Queen – "

"Beloved, please stop," Henry interrupted her. He looked troubled. "You are my wife and my love, and a most treasured princess. But it is treason to call yourself queen while my brother's wife lives. She is to be our queen next, after the gods see fit to take my father, please them that it not be for years yet."

Cora pursed her lips. "And if your oldest brother's wife is, say, taken by plague? Or, perhaps, bitten by a snake?"

"There is my second oldest brother's wife, and the wife of my father's third son. Please, we should not be talking of this at all. I would love you if you were still nothing more than the miller's daughter. I have loved you since I first saw you. I don't need you to be a queen, or a princess, I only need you to be my love, my own."

She laughed coyly, and allowed him to kiss her. "But what about what I need?"

"I will give you all you need. All you want. All you desire. I can never make you queen, it is true. But I can make you happy. And I can make you feel loved, as no woman has ever been loved."

As he steered her toward the bed, she remembered what Rumpelstiltskin had said when she had asked him about love. The obscene description of the act. She wondered what Henry would do if she repeated it. She swallowed a giggle, and decided not to try. He might become scandalized and doubt his wife's purity, and attempt to annul the marriage then and there. And it would be such a shame to have to kill him on their wedding night.

Life at court was fairly pleasant while the old king lived. In a twist of the sort of irony that soon ceased to surprise her, the incident with Cora's hand in his chest did not seem to have turned him against his newest daughter-in-law. She suspected his thoughts of her were not as pure as they should have been, but she did not mind it. She swung her hips a little more than usual when she walked past him, she gave him lingering smiles when they spoke, and she produced his very first grandchild, little Regina. And she could still be counted on to sit down with a few bales of straw, and spin all the kingdom's debts out of existence.

All this made her a great favorite at the palace. The king lavished gifts and favors on her, and took her advice in many matters. She even took to sitting in the late queen's chair sometimes, while the king heard petitions. She was queen in everything but name, and it was almost good enough. Only hearing her official title – always "Princess Cora" – made her bristle.

When the king died, she was almost sad. Henry's older brother, Benedict, ascended to the throne, and his wife, Daphne, was crowned queen. The years of Cora's unofficial reign had built up a great deal of resentment in the new queen. Daphne took the throne with a sense of long-overdue vindication, and immediately began to dismantle the influence Cora had built up. She set Cora as low on the order of her ladies-in-waiting as she dared, given their relation by marriage. She saw to it that Henry and Cora were always in the second wave of guests to enter court functions. She had Cora perform common tasks, like carrying her train into dinner, or tote around her sewing box.

Daphne gloried and gloated in her rise to prominence over her popular sister-in-law, and she never missed out on the chance to bring up Cora's humble origins as the miller's daughter. So, one night, while they were alone together in Daphne's dressing room, Cora reached into the queen's chest, plucked out her heart, and crushed it into dust, laughing as Daphne's eyes widened and wept and finally closed. Cora then ran out of the room, crying and shouting that the queen was suffering some kind of fit, and could not breathe. People rushed into the dressing room, but Daphne, of course, was beyond help.

It might have ended there, if a stray scullery maid hadn't been skulking around the halls. Whether she was merely snooping on her betters, or taking away buckets of bathwater as she claimed, she had been at the door at the precise moment Cora had reached into Daphne's chest. She had stayed glued to the sight, her hand pressed over her mouth, and had skittered away from the door only moments before Cora had run out of the room.

The maid's account swept the servants' quarters and half the city before it finally became known to the court. Cora made sure the identity of the girl was discovered, and had her dragged before a judge, accused of spreading treasonous lies. She watched the girl die in the dungeons, wishing she could have meted out the sentence herself. Henry made certain his wife was exonerated; near the end, the girl had recanted her tale, through broken teeth and shortened tongue. They were only vicious lies, Henry insisted, so vehemently that everyone believed him. Or, at least, pretended to. Or, perhaps, did not believe him at all, but were terrified of Cora.

She was safe from accusations of witchcraft and regicide, but the palace was no longer a pleasant place. Whenever she ventured outside the gates, the cheers of the citizens sounded like terrified screams. Inside the palace, no one but Henry and Regina seemed to want to spend any amount of time with her. People were unable even to look her in the eye. And the deep mourning for the dead queen didn't help any.

Life at court had become a burden for the Princess Cora. Especially since the new king had looked into the royal statutes and announced that, though the old king had styled Henry and Cora "Prince and Princess," now that the new king had ascended, his sons were the princes. Henry was merely a northern duke, and so his wife was no more than the Duchess Cora. Which was so insignificant, she might as well be nobody at all, with straw on her gown.

For years, Henry had been making noises about moving them to his dukedom in the north. He loved the castle there, and the weather, and the people, and the wide expanses of green grass. He wanted to claim his birthright, however much his wife might despise it. He wanted his daughter to grow up in a place that belonged to her, however humble it might be. When he brought it up again, Cora finally agreed.

"You'll see, it will be the best thing for us," her husband said joyfully, kissing her hair, her fingertips.

Impatiently, Cora pulled her hands away. "Yes, well, I suppose we can always come back to court in a few years, after everyone moves on from this foolishness." But secretly, though she didn't have Rumpelstiltskin's gift of foresight, she suspected she would never return to court again.

The castle, she had to admit, was beautiful, all soaring, spiky spires, and severe, stark lines. And the country around it was nothing like the busy, cluttered city around the royal palace – there were endless fields and pastures and skies. But the weather! It was almost constantly either cold, or damp, or – more usually – both at once. Ever since Cora had ripped out her heart, she found it increasingly difficult to tolerate cold.

Her heart was the first thing for which she made special provisions in her new home. She went down to the deepest cellar, and found it wasn't deep enough. She hired men to create an even deeper level, accessible by a door which was almost impossible to find if you weren't looking for it. She made sure they created all the accommodations she might need, and she made sure that they would never tell anyone about the work they were doing. She made sure of this, of course, by taking their hearts. This time, she did not crush the hearts, but merely held them gently in her hands. She presented the hearts to their former owners and informed them that they now belonged to her. No one would be harmed, as long as certain promises were kept. These hearts were the first of her collection.

This became her standard procedure when hiring new employees. She would invite them to her solar, offer them refreshments, ask questions, smile warmly at them. If she thought they would be satisfactory, she would thrust her hand into their chest and remove their hearts. While they gasped and cringed and clutched themselves, she would explain the implications of this procedure and set out the terms of their employment. Thus began their tenure in her household. She paid a fair wage, even if she was a demanding mistress. No one ever complained.

She kept the hearts in a honeycomb of special chests, deep in one of the rooms of her new cellar. Every once in a while, she liked to go down there, feel the fluttering of the many lives she held, literally, in her hands. Bask in the warm red glow of all that power.

She had devised a special sanctum for her own heart. She'd ordered the little room made for use as a storage closet. She'd pried loose the floor tile herself, and dug out a hole beneath it. No one ever suspected it was there. After life at the palace, it was a relief to have a reliable hiding place. There, she had kept it inside the strongbox containing her jewels; that was safe enough, but there were always too many people around. There had always been a risk of being discovered. Now, her heart was finally perfectly safe.

She took it out of the chest sometimes, turning it gently over on her palm, feeling stabs inside her chest whenever she pressed her fingers too hard against it, coolly wondering what death would feel like, and if it would matter very much. She had wondered if it would grow smaller with time, or darker, or harder, like a loaf of bread going stale. But her heart looked exactly as it had looked the day she had taken it out of her own body.

Once, she almost put it back in. As an experiment. But then, she thought of her husband, her daughter, her choices, and she decided against it.

She and Henry had an uneasy marriage. It had been easier to ignore the differences between them when they were living at the palace, with its many spectacles and distractions. She was ambitious; he sought out only peace. He was soft-hearted; she was steely. She wanted their daughter to grow up to be a woman of power and greatness; he only wanted Regina to be happy. As if happiness were possible without power.

There were no children after Regina. Their wedding night and honeymoon had brought Cora no joy, and once she was delivered of a healthy child, she considered her duty fulfilled. There was no especial need of royal offspring – Henry's brothers were all prodigiously fertile. Their wives whelped like barn cats. By the time they had moved to the north, Henry was fifteenth in line to the throne. He might as well have died in infancy.

She did not like her husband to touch her, and he was too timid, or too respectful, or, after some time, too indifferent to object. She had removed her heart, and with it, her love for Rumpel, but the mind will remember thinking what the heart remembers feeling, and Cora had never learned how to remove memories. Every time Henry came near her, she remembered the spinning wheel and the piles of spun gold, and the rasping laughter in the candlelight, and she felt something that made her wonder if there wasn't still a sliver of heart left behind inside her chest.

As for Regina, Cora would have liked to feel more for the girl than she did. After all, Regina would be her only legacy. She was Cora's chance to right the wrongs that had been done. A miller's daughter might have to be content to be the lady of some hinterland that no one ever visited. A duke's daughter had much better chances in life.

But they had never formed a bond. As much as Cora tried to make Regina understand the value of power, dignity and ambition, the girl was her father's daughter. She liked to ride her horse, Rocinante, as far and fast as she could, until she came home covered with dirt. She liked to tour the land with her father, carefully listening to his dull lectures about various crops and structures. She was friendly with everyone, including the kitchen staff, and the tenant farmers' children. In short, her conduct was positively common. Cora had given her relative freedom, hoping the girl would come to her senses on her own. But Regina was nearing marriageable age, and something would have to be done before she made a match that was disappointing. Or downright embarrassing. Like a fourth son.

More than once, Cora had caught herself almost wishing that Regina had been Rumpelstiltskin's child. At least then, she probably would have been interesting.

She never stopped spinning straw into gold. When the old king had lived, she'd done it to keep him sweet. Afterward, when they had moved to the north, there had been expenses, not to mention the royal tax. She took up the spindle willingly – she found it a relaxing pastime – but the following year, the royal tax had inexplicably skyrocketed. Henry's questioning letter to his older brother the king found a vague reply that mentioned a war, a flood and a drought, all at once. Henry never liked to argue with those in power. So Cora had spun the extra gold without complaint, wound it up neatly, and whispered some words over the skeins. The tax was duly sent over to the palace. Several days later, the royal exchequer was found in the locked and bolted treasure room, surrounded by bags of gold and gems collected from all over the kingdom, inexplicably garroted by a length of gold thread. Cora and Henry were never again asked to pay the royal tax.

Henry's dukedom was happy and prosperous. There was little need of gold, but Cora still liked to sit with the spinning wheel sometimes. Late at night, she lit a big fire in her sitting room, ordered some straw brought to her, and set the wheel into motion. She listened to the crackle of the fire, luxuriated in its generous warmth, and rocked to the rhythm of the wheel, as a long thread of gold spun off the bobbins, and looped on the floor. She smiled, as though she were remembering something very pleasant. She was thinking about how it felt to crush Daphne's heart while Daphne watched.

"Careful, dearie. That's how inflation happens."

"Oh!" She was so startled, the thread changed to straw. She dropped it, and spun around. There he was, perched on the ledge of her casement window, grinning as though they had never been in love, as though she had never deceived him, as though he hadn't threatened to take her baby. He was showing all of his teeth, and his eyes had the same cold gleam that she had seen when they had first met. Only one thing was different, she thought – the mild hint of interest was gone, and she was suddenly conscious of how much older she had become, how her skin had lost its glow, how her body had lost its lushness. A life without love did that to women, she knew. But a life without power did worse.

So be it. She raised her chin. "What are you talking about, Rumple? In what?"

"Never mind. I'll let you find out later, along with everyone else." He let out a high-pitched giggle and hopped down, into the room. He came to the pile of gold thread, spooled some around his finger. "You know, it's so refreshing to see a girl remember her roots. Royalty, these days. They don't want to do a bit of honest work. Always taxes, taxes, and wars." He grinned at her, his eyes looking more demented than she remembered.

She took a deep breath for patience, set her jaw. "What do you want, Rumple? I'm busy, as you can see."

"Oh, oh, yes, I do, I see. So sorry to intrude. But I was wondering if you would like me to do you a favor."

"Spare me your favors, Rumple. What is it you want from me?"

He shrieked out another peal of laughter. "You haven't changed at all! Since we last spoke, I mean. Actually, our interests are perfectly aligned at the moment, you might say. A simply marvelous coincidence! Unless you've truly forgotten everything about the past."

"I forget nothing. Will you tell me what you are talking about?"

He took a step toward her, and, somehow, with that one step, crossed the room, and was close enough to touch. She could smell him, leather and hay, and something burnt. For an instant, she almost swayed toward him, but she stopped herself. He didn't appear to have noticed. Lightly, he fingered the golden thread on the spindle.

"Think," he said, his voice a suddenly intimate whisper. "Think about the first time you did this. Think about the first time you were angry enough to kill. Do you remember? You wanted to make them kneel , you said."

"Yes. I did. And they did. At my wedding."

"Not all of them, dearie! Who were they? Do you still remember them all?"

Cora closed her eyes. The years spun backward, gold turning to straw. She saw them walking past, the shine of their leather boots, the hiss of silken slippers.

"The old king."

"Yes."

"Henry, of course."

"Yes ."

"The king's treasurer."

"Yes."

"The . . . the ambassador.

"Yes! And finally . . ."

Cora opened her eyes. Of course. She felt like a fool for not realizing it earlier. "Princess Eva," she said, still tasting the bile of the name. That tarted-up wench, who had stuck out her well-shod little foot and sent Cora flying into a cloud of flour and disgrace.

"It's Queen Eva now," Rumpelstiltskin told her, apparently unaware of Cora's change in mood. Of course. The little wretch was queen, while Cora was Duchess of Nowhere.

"I see," she said flatly. "And of what kingdom? Who is her lucky husband?"

"The noble King Leopold!" Rumple said with a flourish of the hand. "Mind you, it was quite a scandal. After meeting half the kings and princes in the realm and turning them all down, she was at home, counting her love letters and giving her parents a royal headache with her refusal to choose. And then, hark! A peasant rebellion! Sacked the palace and all! Her father had to abdicate the throne and flee the land. And her mother died of grief. Or maybe it was of bludgeoning. Either way, same outcome. Poor soul. "

"And Eva?" Cora was as uninterested in the uprisings of the unwashed as she was in the tribulations of the titled.

"Ah! And young Eva was taken in by the King Leopold. She had nothing and he offered her refuge, if you will. He is older, of course, it seemed unlikely, her parents had even refused him it was rumored – oh, very delicately of course. But there you have it! He married her! For twoo love."

"How happy for both of them," Cora said tightly.

"Oh, indeed. So. Would you like to kill her?"

It took all her self-control to appear neither stunned nor delighted. "Eva? Why? What did she do to you?"

"Oh, it isn't her I care about! It's her daughter, you see. Did I not tell you? She had a little girl. One of the many things you and Queen Eva have in common. Except for being queen of course!" He cackled. "But I digress. Suffice it to say that my plans require Snow White's mother to die. My reasons are my own. I provide the weapon and the means; you merely do the deed. Do we have a deal?" He grinned expectantly, holding out his hand.

Cora was about to agree. And then, she remembered. The first time he had offered her a deal, she was able to get so much more, merely by asking. She smiled at him. He seemed wary. Good.

"No. If I wanted to kill Eva, I could figure out a way to do it on my own. I could care less about that girl now. I want something else from you, Rumple."

"Such as?"

"I'm grateful to you for teaching me to spin straw into gold. And for the other parlor tricks you taught me. But I think the time has come to elevate my education. I want more. I want to be as powerful a sorcerer as you."

"Quite a tall order, my dear," he told her, perching comfortably on the back of her own chair. "Are you sure that would be a fair price?"

"You want a woman dead, Rumple. A queen, guarded round the clock. If it was easy to do away with her, you would have done it already. If I am going to take this risk for you, I want to know I have a good reason."

He froze for a moment, that crazy smile plastered to his face. His eye twitched. "Hmmm – deal!" he cried, and immediately produced a contract and quill. Cora signed. The paper vanished. So did his insane grin.

"Well," he murmured, coming closer. "I shall teach you everything I can. You always were an avid pupil."

She could feel his breath on her cheek. She wanted to close her eyes. She remembered what it was like to have a heart. She caught a glimpse of her own spinning wheel, the pile of spun gold on the floor. She wanted – she wanted –

The heavy book materialized out of the air, and fell to the floor with a loud thud that raised a cloud of dust from the rushes and the ancient pages. Startled, she looked up at him. His gaze was icy. "No time like the present to begin."

It took longer than she had expected. It turned out that he did not need Eva killed immediately, or even particularly soon. It only had to happen before her daughter's tenth birthday. And Snow White – what an imbecilic name! – was still a little girl.

He did not seem to mind the time they needed to spend together. The magic that Cora was learning would only help, he said, in doing what needed to be done. So they pored over the grimoire, and he taught her to release spells from its pages, inhale them through her nostrils, absorb them until they were part of herself. He showed her how to propel enormously heavy objects through the air without touching them. He taught her how to squeeze fire from the air and how to make a sea well up out of dry stones.

He never touched her. If Cora was honest with herself, he seemed to almost have a physical aversion to her. He never brought up their past, and he was never, ever kind. But he was useful. And that was the important part.

One day, on his way out, he almost bumped into Henry, who was returning from the fields. Rumple gave him a wink and a jaunty wave as they passed one another.

"Is that . . . ?" Henry peered after him, looking stupefied.

Cora sighed, already bored. "The Dark One. Yes."

"Is he the one who – are you and he – "

"He isn't my lover, if that is what you are trying to ask me."

Henry's mouth twisted a little, as if he were disgusted. "That is not what I am asking you, Cora," he said, with an uncharacteristic sharpness in his voice. "That isn't what I care about. Is he the imp that you were going to run away with? On the eve of our wedding?"

"You – you knew about that?"

"There were rumors."

"They were true," Cora replied flatly, settling herself into a chair. "He was the one who helped me learn to spin straw into gold. He saved my life that night in the tower. Your father would have killed me in cold blood. Instead, he sold you to me. Equally cold, don't you think? I never loved you. Your father knew it. I don't think he thought you were much of a prize, come to think of it. But you were the prize I was given. At the time, it seemed worth keeping."

The words did not appear to have any effect on him. He shook his head, and said only, "Why are you spending time with the Dark One now?"

"We are friends," Cora said archly. "We share confidences. Swap recipes. That sort of thing."

Henry looked at her. He looked very, very sad. Then again, he always looked sad these days. "Oh Cora," he said. "I have heard it said by wise men, that magic always comes with a price."

"Lucky for us," she snapped, rising to leave the room, "price is no object for a woman who can spin straw into gold."

It had taken a long time, but Rumplestiltskin finally pronounced the education of Cora complete. She felt no satisfaction in it. She'd grown used to spending time with him. Now, their deal was nearly finished. She tried not to wonder whether they would meet again.

He seemed to be aware of the direction of her thoughts. His huge green eyes zeroed in on hers. "Next time I see you," he said, in that sing-song way he had, "who knows what's gonna happen. But for now, let's go over our plan. You know the disguises?"

She cycled through them quickly. The lady's maid, Johanna. One of the cook's assistants. And, last and most difficult, the Blue Fairy. Somehow, Eva had managed to obtain her own magic-wielding friend, and this irritated Cora as much as anything else. She concentrated on transforming. She closed her eyes, tight, and when she opened them, she was hovering a man's height above the ground, wearing something highly uncomfortable and more than a little bit tarty.

Rumpelstiltskin's eyes, each almost the size of her head, leered at her. "Well, now. This dress suits you, my dear."

"Shut up, Rumple," she told him, in the Blue Fairy's buzzing soprano. "What else?"

"You have the candle? You know what to say to the girl?"

"We've been through it," Cora reminded him, tracing impatient figure-eights in the air.

"And the poison?"

"Untraceable and incurable, because it does not come from this land. I have plenty on hand. Thanks for the supply, by the way. I'm sure I'll find a use for any leftovers."

"Well then! You sound like you are all set. A pleasure doing business with you!"

"Wait!" she cried. "Let me change back, so we can say goodbye properly."

"Don't bother, dearie," he smirked, eyeing her blue bodice."I rather prefer to remember you like this." He vanished before she had a chance to make a retort.

The plan was to go to Leopold's palace, disguise herself as a cook's assistant, and sprinkle poison in Eva's breakfast. It would work fast. When the queen was being tended by her physicians and her daughter was frantic with worry, Cora would disguise herself as the servant, Johanna, and advise Snow to seek the help of the Blue Fairy. Then, Cora would don the disguise of the Blue Fairy, and tempt Snow White with dark magic.

"She'll never agree to it," Cora had told Rumpelstiltskin. "She's a little girl, she would never have the stomach to do it."

"She won't," he'd agreed. "But it needs to happen now, so that it can happen later." And he refused to tell her more.

Cora was ready. She would just go to touch her heart for luck. Well, not for luck. Only to remind herself that she was in control, that she could do anything.

As she went down the stairs, she wondered what Regina would do, if she were faced with a similar choice. The life of her mother in exchange for the purity of her soul. Cora sighed. Regina would probably weep and snivel, and, in the end, let Cora die. The girl would need to be toughened up before she would make any kind of queen.

A new thought occurred to Cora, making the corners of her mouth curl up. Come to think of it. A certain king was about to be widowed. With a young daughter who would find herself in dire need of a youthful mother. Cora smiled to herself. Perhaps it would be easier to make her daughter a queen than she'd thought.

Yes. Throwing Leopold into Regina's path would be an easy matter of arranging circumstances. As for the girl, she was obedient enough, most of the time; she could simply be told what to do. They'd meet, they'd marry, Regina would become queen and step-mother to that silly little girl with the stupid name, and they would live, if Cora had to guess, happily ever after.

She laughed to herself at the simplicity of the plan. Perhaps she would just change one or two of the details. Happiness ever after was a nice idea. But it wasn't good enough for her daughter.


End file.
